Incredible new school concept in Washington

It is my limited understanding that there exists a middle ground between public and private schools in the US: charter schools that are publicly funded but self-run (i.e. independent of meddling bureaucrats). Or something. It doesn't really matter. All that matters is that a nascent Washington charter school called The Equity Project (TEP for short) is going to pay its teachers US$125,000 p.a. + bonus. That's rather incredible, probably double the average salary for teachers in the US (just my guess).

The school is guided by the principle that teacher quality is the most important contributing factor to student learning. They are setting high expectations of their teachers, of course. Not only will they have to demonstrate their expertise very thoroughly in order to get a job there, their job description goes well beyond classroom teaching to include professional development, extra-curricular activities and essentially running the school. To afford the teacher salaries, the idea is to employ only teachers as far as possible. Very few administrators, no substitute teachers, no professional development. Teachers take a forced sabbatical every five years, and spend six weeks of non-term time in collaborative curriculum and lesson development.

But it's not all hard work. It appears that teachers there would spend less time in the classroom than I do, and they teach only one subject at only one grade level. That is, a teacher may have four Year 10 maths classes, instead of, for instance, my current load of Years 7, 8, 9, 10 and 12. There's an obvious advantage to that: a smaller burden of preparation. The disadvantage is a lack of variety. I don't know which I'd prefer.

It seems that everything about this school is very interesting. The website certainly makes interesting reading. I hope to hear progress reports over the coming years.

Principals to choose own staff

I wrote about this in Midnight Rambler yesterday. But Helen Pellegrino, in a letter to the Herald, has summed it up more succinctly than I could.

As a British teacher, I cannot imagine why teaching unions would oppose principals having the right to choose their staff (Letters, February 6). I understand that hard-to-staff areas might struggle to attract teachers, as do inner-city schools in England. However, a teacher whose main goal is to earn enough points to choose their next school is not focused on the best interests of pupils.

Of course, teachers are able to sidestep the policy by choosing to work in the Catholic or independent sectors. This means that public education misses out on some excellent teachers.

Having worked with excellent principals and weaker ones, I insist on choosing a school whose ethos is aligned with my own. Likewise, a principal needs to choose staff who are committed to shared goals.

Book: The Teaching Gap

A friend and colleague lent me a book called The Teaching Gap. It looks at maths teaching in the US and compares it with maths teaching in Japan and Germany. The authors looked at heaps of video footage of maths lessons in all three countries to draw their conclusions.

It's very interesting to read. I'll just jot two points that have come up so far:

• The authors firmly believe that the difference between cultures is much greater than the difference within them. Of course, maths teachers within one country vary greatly in skill and style, but they all look fairly similar when compared with maths teachers from another country.
• An unnamed education expert, when asked to summarise the difference in style between the three countries, said: "In Japanese lessons, there is the mathematics on the one hand, and the students on the other. The students engage with the mathematics, and the teacher mediates the relationship between the two. In Germany, there is mathematics as well, but the teacher owns the mathematics and parcels it out to students as he sees fit, giving facts and explanations at just the right time. In US lessons, there are the students and there is the teacher. I have trouble seeing the mathematics; I just see interactions between students and teachers."

The US authors are critical of maths teaching in the US, and see improvement in teaching style as necessary, rather than continual focus on class sizes and equipment. Their basis for criticism is the poor results US students achieve in the worldwide (41 countries) TIMMS study. After all, Japan always scores near the top, and their typical class size is 37!

I'd love to observe some maths lessons in Hong Kong, Japan, China, Singapore, etc. Judging from the Asian students I teach, they cover advanced material significantly earlier than we do in Australia.